


Under the Influence

by mr-finch (soubriquet)



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-26
Updated: 2012-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-12 23:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/496845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/pseuds/mr-finch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan doesn’t stagger into his apartment. Rather, he’s steady on his feet and looks around as soon as he enters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Influence

Nathan doesn’t stagger into his apartment. Rather, he’s steady on his feet and looks around as soon as he enters. Eager for a glimpse of his business partner’s life, perhaps. 

But he doesn’t spend too long looking. That’s what Harold has always liked about Nathan. He doesn’t ask too much, never pries too far. Even when he’s drunk - and he isn’t now, he’s barely a hair off sober - Nathan seems to be naturally inclined to hold back. 

“Since you were so keen to see the place, I thought I might oblige.”

The brief pause is all the indication he’ll get, but it’s enough. Nathan has forgotten all about the answerphone message; Harold can tell. He won’t tell him about the seven others, then.

“Is this all?” Nathan asks, as they walk through the entranceway that opens out into a living area carefully constructed to look lived-in.

Harold raises an eyebrow. “What were you expecting?” 

“With all the secrecy,” It seems to take him a moment to think, but Harold knows it’s deliberate, to make him laugh. “A military base, maybe?” Especially with that grin.

He scoffs, and reaches towards the glass cabinet, indicating the couch with his other hand. Nathan looks edgy without something to hold, and it only hurts for a second. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just as normal as you are.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He sinks into the couch, graciously accepting the glass and taking an appreciative sip. “This is good, you shouldn’t have.”

“What are friends for?” Harold says, as he fills the bottom of his own glass and takes his seat in the armchair diagonally across from the couch. He refrains from filling the silence with a “So?” - he wouldn’t usually, but even if this apartment is fake there are still touches of him in it, telltale signs that he couldn’t help leaving in.

But eventually he can’t stand it, not with Nathan casually swilling his drink and gazing around him. He leans a little forward, resting one elbow on the chair’s arm and the other on his knee. “Are you satisfied?”

Nathan takes his sweet time about it, gaze even sweeping over the couch cushions, before he chuckles into his drink. “Yeah.” He takes a sip, then comes up for air half-smiling. “When do I get to meet the family?”

“Do you think they’d move to the city?” Harold says, playing with his own glass as he leans back, slowly turning it around in his right hand. “They’re over in Washington. A fast paced life would never suit them. I think they’ll be much happier living out their days in the Evergreen State.”

“Noble.”

Harold splutters. “Hardly. I don’t think they’d move if they tried.”

“Well,” Nathan indicates the abode with his drink, “You’ve done well for yourself. I’m sure they would appreciate it.”

“They’re not the type to be proud,” Harold says, measuredly, finding faults in the weave of the carpet before he looks up. “But shouldn’t you know that, Nathan? You did know them.”

He laughs, lightly. “Through _you,_ yes.” The flutter of tension is broken by him resting his elbow on the side of the couch and leaning closer, a twinkle in his eye. “Were they the reason you wouldn’t room with me?”

That takes Harold by surprise. He half-laughs, nervous, and looks away. “Yes. I suppose you could say that.” He can feel the tips of his ears heating up. Damn the alcohol, and damn Nathan. 

“Sure would’ve beaten catching rides from college girls and breaking down after two miles.” There’s the clink of Nathan’s teeth on the glass as he finishes it off.

“I would have pick you up if you’d asked,” Harold says as he gets up, taking the empty glass along with his own half-finished drink past the sofa, toward the sink. 

“Would you?” asks Nathan, forever not done with a conversation.

Harold sets down the drinks on the countertop before he answers, letting the clink of glass fill in the silence for him. “Have the-” he almost says _girls,_ “cars changed?”

“What?” His friend is stirring on the couch.

Never mind. Let them forget it. He wasn’t going to mention the answerphone messages. Harold tops up their drinks and holds his tongue.

Nathan catches him by the forearm when he comes back. His grip is gentle, but insisting. It shocks Harold enough to immediately stop where he is, and Nathan has this awfully curious expression on his face. He assumes he’d call it concerned, and hates himself for being so disdainful. 

“No, what did you mean?”

Maybe not so sober as he’d appeared, then. Harold gazes down at him from the safe distance behind his spectacles; says softly, “You still call me.”

The pattern of expressions that crease Nathan’s face are terribly visible, and he lets go, unintentionally perhaps. Still, Harold shifts his eyes away and leaves one glass on the coffee table between them, the other in his hand as he goes to sit down again. It seems futile, really. As if the wall that should be up to allow them to be easy friends has fallen to the ground with that one comment. He knew it would. 

So instead of sitting, he heads over to the window. Big, square panes of glass reach from the ceiling down to his waist, offering a look into New York City. The city carries on despite them, unaware of its watchers. He wonders, for a moment, how long it will.

Behind him, Nathan rises, brings his drink and shuffles over. He’s at his shoulder, probably looking down at the same view, possibly thinking how best to smooth it over, as only he can. Harold has never prided himself on being good at making people feel at ease.

“I thought I was dreaming,” Nathan says, finally, and half laughs.

“You shouldn’t-” Harold begins, then turns and takes the glass out of his hand. “Do this. You shouldn’t have to.” 

He’s brought up the alcohol, but Nathan only looks at him sadly, hair out of place across his forehead. Skin rougher than the last time he’d looked at him this close, lines deeper. Eyes just as teetotal-blue. 

This was a mistake, inviting him to a house that he doesn’t live in. It’s set everything off, unsettled their usual repertoire, or maybe he’s always like this when they’re not talking about machines and Harold had made it a rule for a reason. Part of him is glad he finally pushed overtly to that edge, because it worries him more than he can say, but the rest is just buzzing, over-sharp and oxygenated. 

Nathan drops their gaze, turns away, as if in giving up on rectifying the situation.

It unnerves Harold, makes the alcohol burn low in his throat. “You're leaving?”

“I should really get some sleep.” He picks up the suit jacket he’d discarded on Harold’s couch, shrugs it over one arm rather than putting it on. “We - I - have a meeting with Steine in the morning.”

“I’m sure he can wait.” And now he’s rambling, following Nathan back to the couch, the two glasses clutched, forgotten, to his chest. “Couldn’t we just talk?”

“We tried that, Harold.” Nathan looks back at him. He’s pissed off now. Somewhere, Harold is swearing off ever having alcohol again. “I don’t think we should prolong the ordeal, do you?”

He has no response to that, and settles for ghosting after him, hesitantly and semi-angrily following him to the front door. Nathan has no trouble with it, which irks him - it’s all happening too fast. “Wait.”

Somehow, he turns back.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Harold offers, meaning the calls, meaning how he never picks up, meaning the reason they keep coming back to each other, again and again. “Ask me anything you want. _Anything._ ” 

For a moment he thinks Nathan will, standing on the doorstep looking like he belongs there, but then the connection ends. The waiting answer disappears; slips from his grip like glass. 

“You’d regret it in the morning. Trust me.”

**Author's Note:**

> After writing [this](http://mr-finch.tumblr.com/post/29528506632/cxzzxt-you-have-one-new-message-hey-harry-you) drabble from Nathan to Harold, I thought it deserved a follow-up.


End file.
